November 27, 2009

The Search for more Barefoot Trimmers and Natural Hoofcare Practitioners

EasyCare receives hundreds of e-mails and calls every month from horse owners that are looking for barefoot trimmers or natural hoof care practitioners in their area. These horse owners have read about natural hoof care and are now ready to give it a try. They need a barefoot trimmer to trim their horses and guide them through the process. The problem is they can't find a trimmer in their area or all the trimmers in their area are booked solid. Crap!

I personally believe the biggest challenge to natural horse care and
barefoot trimming is the number of natural hoof care professionals in
the field. The current number of trimmers can't keep up with the demand of consumers who would like to have one or more of their horses trimmed in a barefoot style. Most of the practitioners I know turn away more work than they take on. The industry needs more trimmers!

The only way to make more trimmers is to have more good certification courses and classes. We have several good certification courses around the world and here in the USA but we need more. The industry needs more courses and more trimmers.

I continue to hear great things about a professional trimming course offered in Australia. The course sounds great and I've personally seen the beautiful work from several of the trimmers who have attended.

I've attached a blurb about the course below. I believe if the USA complained enough we could get them to host a class over here on an annual basis?

Equine Podiotherapy Course – 2009

Never a dull moment!

The
new Diploma of Equine Podiotherapy course for 2009 commenced in
October. The first block of practical lessons was held at Mayfield
Barehoof Centre last month. Everyone had a great time and from the
trimming skills already being displayed I am sure that there are going
to be some fantastic Equine Podiotherapists ready to take their place
as professionals in twelve months time.

Koalas:

The course is run in a rural area of Victoria Australia and students were treated to a meeting with one of the koalas that live
on the property of Andrew and Nicole Bowe where the teaching facilities
are based. The pictures were snapped by vet Alina Luff who is part of
the class. Alina was taking pictures of one of the rehab horse’s hooves
at the time when this little fellow strolled through the pasture where
the more advanced rehab. cases live. Andrew Bowe whose Koala whispering
failed him that time, had to carefully move one of the inquisitive
rehab horses sideways off the koala who thought that the best place to
hide from us was under this big brown “horse tree”!

The Melbourne Cup:

As the Melbourne Cup was held the day after the first block of lessons finished. Two of the students who travelled from Western Australia
thought it would be a great chance to see the cup before catching a
flight home. Tanja Hanish and Alina Luff pictured below having a great
day. Alina said that it was very interesting and all in the name of
furthering their knowledge as they spent a good deal of time
discussing the hooves of the top horses! Donkeys Part of the training
of an Equine Podiotherapist is learning to deal with donkey hooves.
Donkeys are often kept as companion animals but sadly they don’t seem
to get the regular hoof trimming they require, nor do they often get
proper education so they can be a quite a challenge to trim.

Rob
Little is one of the EPT group and although he has been trimming semi
professionally for a while, he has not had to tackle “the donkey” up
till now. I spotted his email posted to the Podiotherapy students and
asked him if I could share it in our newsletter. I love Rob’s colourful
way of writing and thought it was a great

representation of the huge spectrum of cases that professional trimmers may meet.

Hi everyone, thanks for your responses on my posting of the donkey I now have further fuel for the fire.........Today
I visited an elderly gentleman who looked like the old ultra marathon
runner Cliff Young who had a (wait for it) a DONKEY that he was worried
about.He explained to me as we drove over a
hill that the plan was that he would distract the donkey with a piece
of bread and then cuddle the donkey (which I found out was a headlock)
while from a distance I was to approach with a hidden halter slip it
over his head and bobs your uncle feet done, happy donkey.All
of this was going fine with my new found ultra marathon look alike
friend cuddling the donkey and me approaching as if I was taking a walk
in the park until.................... the donkey sees the halter. The

donkey (who had terribly bad feet) took off with my new friend still cuddling, down a hill at a speed andagility resembling that of an African gazelle, taking out small and large trees as it went.As
I watched the donkey and my new friend disappear into the distance
cuddling one another I couldn’t help marvel at 2 totally different
things.

1. How the hell does a donkey that had flippers for feet move like that.

2. Why the hell did my new friend not let go!

Anyway
the donkey unfortunately never got trimmed, and my new friend only
suffered superficial cuts. I know this is a serious chat site so I
shall desist with my donkey bashing and only post relative and
insightful commentary from now on.

-This is Rob signing off.

And Elephants!

While
we are speaking of being asked to do the out of the ordinary .....one
of the first group of EPT students from two years ago, Yvonne Taylor
from WA has just returned from a trip to Africa where she as asked to
deliver workshops to train farriers in natural hoof care practices. She
was also asked by her hosts to assist one of their other animals. She
explained it was a little outside her training but because there was no
one else

around with a file, and Yvonne not being one to shy away from helping a creature in need, she did just that!

Comments

I can't say I agree that there are not enough trimmers. It sounds like Easy Care pushing to have more sales folks on the ground. There are at least 7 trimmers and a bunch more wannabe's near me in training...and I know they are not too busy. I am in N. California.

Sounds like N. Cal is different than Southern AZ or Southern CO. I called every person I know in the industry to try and find help for my horses in Colorado. I didn't find anyone and ended up doing my own trimming all summer. I'm glad it happened that way because I'm actually starting to trim pretty decent.

Tucson, AZ also has a shortage. I know several people who need a good trimmer that has the time to show up.

What are others seeing? Enough good trimmers or do we need more?

Send some of the Cali trimmers south.

Yes, EasyCare would like more trimmers helping with our boots but that honestly was not the point of the e-mail.